McKeever: A meet-cute story

Published 8:46 pm, Thursday, June 26, 2014

His older sister invited him to a Friday-the-13th/birthday party for a mutual friend. The last party he attended with his sister was eight years earlier in high school. That bash ended with him in a doorway, swapping DNA samples with a future lesbian.

Yet, he was ambivalent and depressed. He was 24 and still living with his parents. His job was really terrible, and it was only part-time. He relented. Maybe this would break the funk. Moreover, there was certain to be a keg.

A few hours later, he walked into their friends' house. Almost immediately he approached an athletic-looking woman with long curly hair who was wearing black stretch pants. He had his weaknesses.

She said she was from Nebraska. "I've never met anyone from Nebraska before," he said.

The remaining conversation is lost, but he remembers disengaging from it when another partygoer, who looked suspiciously like his brother-in-law, started horning in on the action.

He meandered into the kitchen, and started catching up with some refugees from a past, more carefree life. Among the group stood one person he didn't know. She said she was from Nebraska.

"That's funny," he said. "You're only the second person I've ever met from Nebraska, and I met the first one a few minutes ago in the other room."

She laughed. "Next, I suppose, you'll tell me I'm only the second blonde you've ever met."

Her eyes were blue. Her skirt was short. The beer was Heineken.

Several hours of witty banter later, his sister interrupted and asked if he was ready to go home. "I guess I'll go with you," he slurred matter-of-factly, "unless SHE wants to give me a ride home."

To his surprise, she said she would. Little did she know that his sister lived just three houses from him.

This fledgling couple, several hours and several foamy Solo cups old, drove to his house in her duct-taped burgundy Toyota Camry.

"I'd invite you in," he said as they sat in the driveway, the November darkness enveloping them, "but I live with my parents."

"That's OK," she said.

Once inside, he tried to play it cool but the thought of his parents sleeping upstairs made that nearly impossible. He took the gentlemanly route instead and offered to make her a cup of tea.

He handed her the steaming mug and a half-filled carton of milk. Without unfolding the cardboard spout, she tipped the carton on its side. A thin white stream arced out through the slit and into her cup.

"I don't know about Nebraska," he said, "but out here, we usually open the carton, then pour."

It was then, legend has it, that they knew that they were perfect for each other.

Four years later, he made her another cup of tea. This time, instead of a paper Tetley tag dangling from the end of the steeping bag, clinking against the cup was a diamond ring.

About a year after that there was another party. After their wedding. That took place 17 years ago tomorrow.

Stamford resident Kevin McKeever, whose nationally award-winning column appears here every other Friday, recently had his work published in the anthology "Dads Behaving Dadly" (http://tinyurl.com/DadlyDads). Email him at kevin@writeonkevin.com.